He was just about to climb up and make his unhappy way home when, glancing over his shoulder for one last look at the fateful spot, his eye caught on an unevenness, a strange, protruding wrinkle in the rosy snow.

Drawing close, he reached out and pulled it up, rough and stiff with blood:

Yehuda Leib’s red woolen scarf.

And this is how it came to pass that Issur Frumkin stood, chilled to the bone, over a shallow hole he had dug in the Tupik cemetery as the first glimmer of dawn stole into the village.

Carefully, with ceremony, he folded the scarf and laid it in the ground.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Issur Frumkin, choking back a sob, and because he didn’t know what else to do with them, he put his hands into his pockets.

What was this? Something cold against his fingers: a little disc of metal.

Yes, yes, of course. The coin Yehuda Leib had given him. It was strange, like no other coin he had ever seen: an open eye on one face and a closed eye on the other.

It didn’t seem right to keep it.

And so, with care, Issur Frumkin bent low and placed the battered gray coin on top of the scarf, closed eye up. That felt right.

But it was very hard to look at—the blood and the scarf, the unchangeably closed eye—and quickly, impulsively, he pushed dirt in on top of them, filling the little grave.

There. That was it.

Nothing more to be done.

Without looking back, Issur Frumkin made his way down the hill toward his bed.

The sun was beginning to rise.

—

The creak of a heavy door. The murmuring of voices.

Morning sun.

Inside Bluma’s eyelids, everything was warm, a cocoon of amber blush, and when she finally forced herself to open her eyes, she immediately regretted it.

The Great Synagogue of Zubinsk was nothing like the homey little prayer house at the center of Tupik. There, the synagogue walls were of painted wood—they seemed to drink in the warmth of the breath spilled in prayer, as if holding it safe for later—but here, everything was cold polished stone and figured metal.

Bluma shivered and rolled over.

She was alone. The pew upon which Rokhl had slept was empty.

She was alone.

But not quite.

The sharp spoon dug painfully into her hip.

With a wince, Bluma pulled the spoon up from her apron. Resting the handle in her palm, she ran the pad of her thumb through its cool basin and up across its edge.

It was almost—almost—beautiful.